War in the North is one of the few Lord of the Rings games that completely passed me by. I played quite a few of the franchise's games in the early 2000s, even racking up some serious playtime in games like Battle for Middle-earth or The Lord of the Rings: Conquest. I was in high school when War in the North came out, and far, far more invested in the highly anticipated The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which released just two weeks after War in the North, and became something of a cultural juggernaut practically overnight, unfortunately wiping out any sort of real sales potential that War in the North may have had. All that being said, I was pleasantly surprised to see this game suddenly receive a remaster in 2026. I managed to carve out some time and finally play this cult classic title.
This Legacy Edition remaster features many wonderful quality-of-life adjustments to the base game. The UI has been altered to improve clarity. The game's performance and graphics have been greatly improved. Features like "hot-swapping" between characters has been added as well, which apparently was not a component of the original release.
Before Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor's 2014 release, War in the North had garnered a reputation for being the first graphic Lord of the Rings video game. Boasting an M rating, this hack-and-slash ARPG has you carving up, dismembering and beheading all manner of Sauron's ghoulish minions and underlings. Given the franchise's wholesome and sterling reputation, I think people get concerned when they hear that it's going down that route, picturing something over the top or gross, like Mortal Kombat. Personally, I never felt like this strayed far from what we've seen from The Lord of the Rings, at least in Peter Jackson's seminal film adaptation. It's not like a comedic level of violence - it feels like just the right amount of carnage to reflect the grim nature of what's happening in Middle-earth.
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| Image Credit: Contains Moderate Peril |
War in the North was originally developed by Snowblind Studios, a team who were known for their Diablo-esque, fantastic action-RPGs. Snowblind Studios developed my beloved Champions of Norrath, which was a PS2 exclusive ARPG set in the iconic EverQuest universe. War in the North continued their co-op focused, loot-driven gameplay but shifted it away from the isometric camera angle that had dominated the "Diablo-like" genre for years, and brought it down to a more intimate third-person perspective. This felt like a natural evolution of the genre to me, and an inspired choice indeed.
Your group is comprised of three heroes: a human Dunedain ranger, a dwarf champion and an elf lore-master. If you play alone like me, you'll choose one of the characters and the other two will be AI controlled. Like with any reasonable person, I chose the dwarf and played him like you would a tank in an MMO. Utilizing the robust skill tree mechanic, I allocated points into nodes that favor shield usage and grant him greater armor, or temporary buffs that boost my party's stats and draw attention away from my dim-witted AI companions and toward me.
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| Image Credit: WayTooManyGames |
I personally found the combat to be incredibly repetitive and tiresome. I feel like by the end of my time with the game, I had only a handful of different moves and abilities to enlist against the never-ending tide of orcs. Though again, I think if I played this with actual people, I would've had a great deal more fun with battling, as we could've utilized strategy and tactics. My companions were so unhelpful, it felt like I was having to kill almost everything, and most of the times I could really only rely on them to revive me when I would inevitably get incapacitated in combat. This frustration was further exacerbated by War in the North's tendency to flood the battlefield with incredibly powerful foes who could just melt my two bot teammates in seconds, leaving me entirely alone to run around and try to pick shots off with my crossbow or scramble to one of the companions to revive them before the pack could tear me down too.
More often than I could count, we would get overwhelmed by aggressive, "damage sponge" type foes who would just perfectly time their attacks in a way that would interrupt one of us trying to revive another teammate. I appreciated the difficulty at times, it added a layer of real challenge to what could've been more of a "button-mashy" affair, and in truth, I think a great deal of my problems with the combat would've been satisfied by either improved AI, which is something they could've potentially taken the chance to alter with this remaster, or by just simply playing online co-op with other people.
Where I feel like War in the North shined brightest was in its presentation of Tolkien's storied fictional universe. The Legacy Edition features beautiful, enhanced graphics that really let Tolkien's world feel even more alive. Inon Zur's soundtrack immediately caught my attention and felt like it perfectly captured the heroic, yet dire tone of the story. The plot fits snugly around and between the events of the core Lord of the Rings trilogy, with our trio of heroes being sent on critically important support missions by iconic figures like Aragorn and Elrond. You visit a bunch of beautifully rendered iconic locations from The Lord of the Rings stories over the course of the game. There are loads of original characters as well, and every one of them felt authentic to the universe and like believable additions to what we've seen of Tolkien's universe on screen. For instance, our central villain is an evil human sorcerer named Agandaûr. Aragorn refers to him as a "Black Númenórean," which are humans who chose to follow Sauron and a life of wickedness. Agandaûr was conceived just for this game's story, but he fit perfectly in the universe and was established as a genuine threat.
One of my very favorite inclusions in War in the North's story is that of the Great Eagles. These noble and intelligent massive birds are a core component in this game's plot, and one of them is even an extension of our party, which I absolutely loved. The Great Eagles famously only show up briefly in the films, so it was incredibly cool getting to spend lengthy bits of time learning more about this fascinating race of Middle-earth. We also get to see some neat characters like another dragon, and a massive stone giant. These sorts of additions just help Tolkien's already grand world feel even bigger and more detailed and rich in lore.
If you're a fan of fantasy games, especially Lord of the Rings, I think War in the North - Legacy Edition is easy to recommend. You'll get a great story, plenty of solid action and some genuinely challenging combat that might push you to your limits. Get some friends to play with you, and you'll be set for a wonderful journey. If you play it solo, you can certainly still have some fun, but the game's rougher edges will certainly be made more apparent, and might hamper your overall experience.
Review Copy was Provided
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